Three Days
by Zalein
Summary: Majora's Mask One-shots The three days seemed to melt together in a confusion of meetings and mishaps. The stories, lost to time, were lost to all but a single boy's memory...
1. Test

_Author's Note: Playing Majora's Mask for the first time in years has persuaded me to write a couple of drabbles for this area of the fandom. I doubt I'll collect as many drabbles as I have for Twilight Princess, but I wanted a place to post them regardless. So far all I've written takes place up in the snowy mountains, but if I write more then the locations and times will undoubtedly vary._

_I've always thought to myself that Link would probably remember everything that happened in OoT, but no one else besides Zelda would. Does that mean that even the Sages wouldn't remember, either? Kaepora Gaebora, rumored to be a reincarnation of one of the sages, gives no sign of remembering the talks they had in OoT, and even shows doubts as to whether Link really is the hero or not._

_Anyway, just something to mess around with. Enjoy!_

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"Perhaps you do have the strength…" The owl hooted quietly, half to himself. Large fierce eyes stared down at the skinny human child, who stood shivering in the snow. The child looked to have collected every scrap of cloth and leather to be found in every store and dumpster in castle town to prepare for his trip to these mountains. The makeshift clothes were all but tied onto his limbs to keep tattered scraps of cloth from falling off—apparently he had known all too well how valuable every bit of protection from the cold would be, and wasn't about to forego any help he could get. Frost and snow dusted his shoulders in the blizzard while the owl and boy stared at each other. The owl thought to himself that if the boy hadn't called up a greeting to him, he wouldn't have recognized the human at all.

His study moved from the smudges of soot on the boy's clothing to his eyes: they were bright with defiant cheer, fighting the cold with warmth of their own. The rest of his face was wrapped in a long scarf-like shawl that barely left even the boy's eyes visible, much like the owl had seen Sheikah dress themselves traditionally. How strange that the child had figured that method out—it wasn't the simplest one by any means, but it was the most secure… perhaps a traveler had taught him.

"There is a shrine up ahead!" Kaepora said suddenly, breaking the silence and letting his head jerk forward as though on it's own accord. He was rewarded by seeing the child jump back in surprise and then his eyes squint sheepishly when he realized his own reaction.

"Really?" The boy asked (no 'Sir' or 'Lord Owl', Kaepora noted with interest) edging back closer to the ledge he was speaking from with that permanent spring in his step. Maybe it was the cold making him jumpy—it had been such a long time since Kaepora had felt cold that it was hard to remember at times.

Kaepora let his head rise again, this time rotating it to one side. "Yes, there is! And I am headed there soon, you know!"

Link's eyes were suddenly very bright, and he took another step forward, wading through snow that went up to his knees. "Really? Are you going to fly?" He prompted. The owl chortled.

"Of course, child! How else would I go?"

The boy looked embarrassed. "Yeah, thought of that only after…" Blue eyes momentarily vanished as he looked down, any mumbling muffled by the cloth over his mouth. Then he looked back up and spoke normally. "So—you're going to fly. Can I come with?"

"If you have the courage!" Kaepora shifted slightly, rotating his head the other way. "I'm afraid that you may not hold on to my talons, however—I am very old, after all, Hoot hoot!"

Link's cheer faded a few notches. "Oh…"

"You must follow me, child, and remember this: the path is not what it seems!"

The child's cheer faded even more, replaced by a distinctly uneasy expression. "What do you mean?" He asked slowly. "Where are we going, how—"

In an unspoken answer the owl was a sudden flurry of movement, flailing wings and flapping feathers. Launching his weight into the air he turned to sail right off the cliff-like ledge whose border Link was now recoiling away from rather quickly.

"Hoot hoot! Don't be afraid—if you truly have courage then you will know what must be done!" With a dip of his wings the owl had swooped up and sailed over the boy, pivoting to face away. Still flying he glanced behind himself at the child's slowly diminishing form, focusing on him easily with his keen eyes. Human cheeks that had been a raw pink from the cold had less color than before, and his blue eyes were riveted on the owl. Betrayal, hurt, and even anger passed in a flash through those eyes, before they focused on something else, something below or beyond him.

Kaepora swiveled his head back to watch where he was going--no, the boy wasn't staring past him at a hidden mountain he was about to run into. That was a relief—the first time he had done that had been quite embarrassing, and it was quite fortunate no one had been watching at the time.

The owl suddenly banked to one side, flapping to steady his sudden change in direction. Would the boy catch on to the test he was being given? Kaepora had always fancied himself a good judge of character, but it was hard to tell the difference between seeing a poor sense of self preservation or a skilled one in someone who looked confident of his survival one way or another.

Oh well—it was too late to go back and change anything, seeing as that with his speed he was already reaching a he needed to turn at. The world swung sideways and every inch of him felt as though it was being pulled in previous direction. The feeling faded as the owl glided a moment before flapping for altitude.

Goodness, had he really gone so far already? A couple of turns and the path had taken him out of sight of most of the village. The shrine was intentionally far away from the Gorons—it was far from everyone who might be foolish, brave, or both enough to try to reach it. Only the _hero_ was allowed to go there, and only then with a guide. A guide like Kaepora Gaebora.

Now to find a good place to perch and wait. Undoubtedly the child was back at the cliff, wondering what on earth he was supposed to do now. A pang of guilt went through the owl—after all, the test was essentially asking a human to leap blindly into empty space, a request against nearly all two-legged being's very nature. It would be like—like asking a bird to fly through a great whirlwind, or land in a torrent of water! And yet such acts required courage, as well as the intuition to distinguish a proper guide from a bad one. It occurred to the owl that he might have spent a little longer speaking with the child to learn more of the journeys he had had, and perhaps tell whether or not the child was old enough for such possibilities to have even occurred to him. The owl would normally have already satisfied these questions, as he had spent many years looking for the hero and knew how to find what information he wanted. The quest of a guide to find the guided was not one Kaepora took lightly. The lack of normalcy every meeting with this particular child, however, surprised him every time. It was as though all the routines the owl favored had already been done, and the boy was eager to skip the old words that had already been said. It was refreshing, if worrisome. Who was this boy who acted as though he knew him, when Kaepora was sure he had never seen him before? Perhaps—

The owl's thoughts of doubt and curiosity were broken by a glimpse of a gray figure fighting its way through the blizzard of white. The human was bundled like a miniature snowman, struggling with the wind and his own restricted movements. Upon his head was a hat bound with a scarf.

The boy was following a trail of feathers, ignoring the fact that for all the world he looked to be walking on air.

The owl watched, fascinated, as the child made his way to the giant bird's perch, peering in the rocky cave below with obvious curiosity and then shouting a greeting that was by now becoming so familiar.

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	2. Frustration

_Author's Note: This is proof that sometimes a drabble just doesn't work out if you try to make it long. I am very content with this one's length, because it has all I had in mind without having any loose ends. _

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The boy's young face twisted into an ugly scowl as he leapt to one side, rolling to his feet as the spell hit where he had been just moments before. The magic turned the air near the ground into ice, and from a full two feet away he could feel the bitter chill radiating from it.

"Not original!" He muttered furiously to himself, jerking his gaze back to his opponent as it appeared in a different corner of the room. Growling a curse for good measure, the child raised his sword and charged at the hideous parody of a humanoid figure. The creature's blue face drooped in revolting smile, and Link let out a cry of frustration as it faded from view again.

"It's not like I haven't killed things like you before! You're going to die one way or another, so either go away and give me the chest—" Link jerked around in an aggressive crouch, before diving and rolling to one side as a blast of frost and ice landed where he'd been. The monster gave a high-pitched, excited giggle at the near-hit, pivoting on the spot and disappearing again. Link was on his feet just in time to watch him vanish. He snarled.

"Or. Just. Let. Me. Kill. You!"

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	3. Frightful Weather

_Author's Note: Wow, I thought I'd posted this long since! Oh well--sorry for the wait, folks._

_I've always wondered exactly how it is that our bold little hero can run around snow-covered mountains wearing nothing but shorts and a tunic. I think that if we were to be realistic, he would need more clothes. Not only that, but even then the snow would affect him as badly as it did the Gorons, if not worse._

_It's sad that I can be driven to this level of discomfort in temperatures close to late 40 degrees Fahrenheit. ;) _

_Enjoy!_

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Link's fingertips throbbed from the bitter cold in spite of the thick gloves that covered them. Every heated breath he exhaled was a gust of icy fog to his face. His eyes and cheeks—the only parts of his face left to open air—were a raw pink, chapped with frozen humidity. Just a bit farther, he told himself mindlessly, he only had a bit farther to go.

The ocarina's Song of Soaring had brought him to the Mountain Village, a huddled array of frozen houses crowded together in what might have been one of the only flat-ish areas the mountain had to offer. It occurred to Link that he might have stayed there a while, to stock up on emergency supplies, but it was too late to turn back now: he was closer to his destination than he was the village.

It was an absurd destination, he thought dumbly, with an absurd route to it. Farore only knew how the Goron sentries had reached those heights, what with their enormous bulk. They must have taken a different route, he decided, squinting through a monocle that felt frozen to his face. Yes, that was more likely. Even he was having trouble—after all, climbing a straight-up cliff face (which was even leaning out a bit, near the end), with every crack and crevasse worn smooth by wind and slippery ice, with nothing to hold onto except invisible hand-holds was no easy feat at all. It was very convenient that the ice-cold lens he had was held in place by magic, because he wouldn't have been able to hold it and climb at the same time.

The young hero snatched one hand away from the bar it was just about to close around, shaking it so it flapped back and forth. Nearly all feeling was gone from his knees and elbows down, but he had somehow felt the cloth of his glove catch and scrape against the rock-face before him. Pausing just long enough to look at his hand, he saw a frayed hole where his patchwork cloth had been ripped and a painful scrape in the skin behind it. Link was too cold to groan. Without glancing at it again, he completed his half-finished reach, resuming his fevered climb. He had no time to worry about that now. He would find some way to mend the tear and tend to the scratch when he got to the top. There he would have time to rest, time to mend, time to be warm. Goddesses, how long had it been since he'd felt _warm?_

At least he knew the Gorons at the top of the mountain would be surprised to see him. Every single time they noticed him they would jump and gawk to see his puny little form struggling against both wind and gravity, clawing with skinny limbs to drag himself to solid ground. It wasn't like surprise was something he especially aimed for, or that his arrival was new to him anymore. He bared his teeth in a slightly hysterical grin no one could see--the last time he'd done it was tomorrow! Nayru, but his sense of time had been turned around, and the boy silently swore by a goddess again while his hands automatically reached and grabbed.

The top was always the hardest part to scale. The cliff-face leaned out, and he held on with grim determination and little else. By now he was feeling thoroughly numb, and he had to keep glancing down to make sure his feet hooking around the other side of the rung as they should. He had had practice with not looking down past his feet. Scaling mountains in a past life, looking past gold-covered boots at thin air, climbing Kakariko Village's watchtower… but that was another time, another place. He giggled again at these thoughts, giddy with cold, and then coughed. Puffs of mist and fog made his cheeks warm and sting more, and he stopped climbing until his breathing steadied.

No, Link suddenly changed his mind, the top area of the cliff wasn't the hardest. The last few inches of cliff where he clambered over the edge itself were the hardest. The snow he tried to hold on to would start sliding out, and his clothes would catch and tear enough to ruin them but not enough to slow any slipping. The wind seemed to pick up and teasingly push him one way and then the other, trying to slip cold fingers into his scarf and whistle down his collar. Quick panicking gasps would make his face sting and his eyes water, and he would suddenly notice he _was_ falling back, and the distance between where he was and the ground would make it seem as though the wind really was making the world spin, and his grip would slip, and then he would suddenly fall forward onto safe ground in stiff movements that his dizzy mind hadn't even been aware of ordering.

The wind seemed to disappear as he dragged himself to safety, as though some great creature had paused to take a breath. Link lay there in the snow for a few breaths, letting his tired mind catch up with his near-death-by-falling experience. The cold had muddled his thoughts, making him overconfident: the climb was hard every time and would always be. As soon he had collected himself enough for his heart to stop pounding Link looked around.

Snow and rock sloped up on either side of his island of safety, making it look as though enormous hands were sheltering him. The sudden stillness in the air made his wind-battered sides feel tingly, but he recognized the feeling and ignored it. A stone-hewn doorway leading straight into the mountain stood before him at the other end of his little sanctuary. Huddled just inside this entrance was a pair of shivering Gorons, pitiful in their obvious discomfort.

They were twice as tall as the boy was. Both had round bodies, with twiggy little legs and arms. Their heads resembled human heads less than they did a snowman's—they were perched directly on their shoulders with a similar sturdy build. Right now the Gorons were trying to preserve their warmth by rubbing their arms. Link stared blankly at them, and since he was too tired to call a greeting, started walking forward.

The shivering Gorons didn't notice him until he was just outside the doorway. Snow had muffled his footsteps, and their eyes had been half-shut against the cold. It was clear by their slow reactions that they hadn't been expecting anyone to come.

"A h-h-human!" The one closer to the door cried, his jump of surprise almost unnoticeable amidst his shivers. The Goron beside him grimaced hugely (because his turning to look had exposed one side to the cold) before gawking. "Y-yes-s-s, a h-human!" Both engaged the laborious process of getting up. They moved side by side to block his path.

Link stopped, biting back a poorly-thought reply at their cold-induced stupidity. He was in no condition to deliver insults, and these Gorons would let him past if he asked politely. "G-greetings!" As if the cold weren't enough, he sounded like a squirrel. He frowned at his young voice, and he scowled at it and the cold combined. Neither Goron saw his expressions behind his scarf.

"S-s-small…" One Goron muttered (more loudly than he'd intended, Link told himself firmly), and the other nodded in jerky agreement. The first Goron was still gawking.

"W-w-what d-do y-y-you w-w—"

"I-want-to-see-the-great-h-hero-Darmani's-grave-will-y-you-let-me-in-please!" Link chattered in one breath, stamping his feet for feeling.

"D-Darman-ni's g-grave—"

"Yes-please-I-would-like-to—t-to--!" Link, all his movements quick from shivering, suddenly drew his head back and sneezed mightily. Perhaps stunned by the tiny human's boldness, or maybe just not wanting to be sneezed on, one guard edged to one side. Link darted forward instantly, flinging a "Wow-thank-you-very-much!" over one shoulder at two identical grunts of surprise.

His ears rang at the cave's relative silence, but he hurried on. When he heard large footfalls starting to follow him he suddenly swiveled around and cried earnestly, "I-need-to-pay-my-respects-to-the-dead-by-myself-as-per-my-really-distant-and-unknown-to-you-culture's-instructions-so-please-stay-outside-thank-yo-aaCHOO!" With a sniff he turned and disappeared down the passage, leaving a bewildered Goron behind.

Link nodded to himself once he was out of sight, feeling dully pleased with himself: that request worked every time.

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	4. Stalfos

_A/N: This one starts during the game's opening cutscenes. __Special thanks to Delphie for proofreading this! All mistakes that she might have missed are mine_.

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The first one to know that something was wrong was Epona.

Link snapped his head around, as taut as a bow that'd been pulled back too far. He raked the surrounding woods with exhausted eyes, and only saw green blurs for his trouble. The crickets were silent. Epona's flank quivered, and restless fidgeting stilled as her ears twitched back and forth.

Something hit him with enough force to tear him from his saddle. A shriek split the air—a shout of pain, or a scream of unholy laughter, he couldn't tell. The sound stopped when he hit the ground. Epona shrilled in alarm, and Link threw himself to the side and to his feet, expecting another blow. He was too slow—something cracked down on his head, and the next thing he knew was the hard, prickly ground.

Link stirred sluggishly, trying to regain his bearings. It wasn't enough that he'd started out today already ravenous, and having had no sleep the night before. As weak as a sick kitten, and lurching like a drunkard, Link forced himself to his feet again, leaning heavily on the tree he'd landed beside.

There was Epona. She was pawing the ground anxiously and watching him with worried eyes. Beside her were two points of light, and a child rummaging through the horse's saddlebags. The child paused to look at him, baring his teeth. His limbs were skeletal and thin, and his clothes looked like dead pieces of leaf and bark. He was a Skull Kid.

"Hey!" Link protested hoarsely. The kid went back to the saddle bags. Link took a step forward and almost fell. "Stop it!"

Taking a chance, Link staggered away from the tree and made a lunge towards the thief. There was a ringing in his ears, and the pinpoints of light pulsed brightly. The Skull Kid jerked his head up at the sudden movements, and lashed at Link out in surprise. Link felt something hit his face and grabbed blindly, catching an arm. Its owner yelped when Link pummeled him with his free hand, and hit back before finally trying to retreat. Link held on, and was pulled after him.

Link heard Epona whinny in shock, which turned to outrage as the world flipped. Suddenly he was pressed against Epona's side, feeling as though his hands had been wrenched from their joints. "Epona!" he gasped. Something boney hit him—it was probably the kid, who was kicking up a furious, unintelligible fuss over the boy clinging to him like human-shaped limpet.

He heard the sound of something impacting flesh, and Epona shrilled painfully, breaking into a gallop. The ground yanked itself out from under him, and the last thought he remembered was that he _how dare that thief hit Epona, his wonderful horse?_

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Link woke up slowly. His face was pressed into the familiar hard, pine-needle covered forest ground that the Lost Woods was known for, and when he breathed in the scent reminded him of home.

The Lost Woods were eerily silent. Crickets chirped, but they sounded far away, as though he were indoors and they were outside. His head felt hot, and his tongue was thick and dry in his mouth. He needed water. When he moved, his head roared in pain, and he went still again. Water could come later—first he needed to rest.

Eventually he lifted himself into a sitting position, unable to hold back a whimper. His head pounded at the slightest movement, and exhaustion and starvation snatched at his strength like wind at smoke. Where was Epona? She had his saddlebags, and there was water in them-

Memories came crashing down onto him, and he started to his feet, only to crumple back to his knees with an agonized groan. He was alone. The shock of this discovery was enough to give him a strange moment of clearheaded-ness. He was alone in the Lost Woods. He'd strayed too far from the village and Hyrule, and he couldn't feel the Great Deku Tree's magic in this part of the woods. He was weak, and unless he dealt with that soon, he'd be eaten by a monster, or worse—turn into a stalfos.

Link stayed there a few moments, nursing his head and trying not to let loneliness and exhaustion overwhelm him. After he felt ready to stand, he did, and gingerly plowed on.

* * *

That night was a bad one. The moon was dark, and it was impossible to see anything in the near absolute darkness. Link hoped he was still going in the same direction as before, but even with his experience with forests, he was all but blind. He constantly heard rustling, and he kept thinking he saw snatches of bright colors through the trees. He wondered if he was feverish, or if his head was hurt worse than he'd thought. Then he had to navigate around a particularly thick clump of trees, and didn't have time to think about it.

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The next day started out with a bright light and ringing in his ears. Link squinted and blinked, before realizing he was on his back, staring up at the sun. Grimacing, he rolled gingerly on to his side—and the light followed, clanging irritably at him. _Hey! Wake up, you lazy boy!_

Breath caught, Link stared stupidly at the fairy, almost not daring to hope. Then the breath whooshed out of him in a disappointed sigh: it wasn't Navi.

The fairy landed on a branch in front of him. _What's your problem? Never seen a fairy before? Well get over it. I know we're bright, but I need your help!_

Link tried to talk, but all that came out was a sort of croak.

_Oh,_ the fairy said. _You're thirsty. Well, drink later. This is important! _

The fairy waited expectantly. Link started to move, and then stopped. He felt too miserable, and wasn't actually sure if he could get up at all. Eventually the fairy relented, her light pulsing irritably. _If you absolutely can't wait, there's a stream just over there you can drink out of._

She was right. All of a sudden, Link could hear it bubbling, but stars exploded in his vision when he tried to sit up, and his elbows gave out without warning.

_Oh for pity's sake! Wait here._ The fairy left.

Not having much choice, Link waited. After a small eternity, the fairy came back holding a large leaf, which was folded to cup a handful's worth of water. She carefully trickled it into his mouth (he'd never tasted water that felt so wonderful), and had to make several trips. Finally he waved his hand, and she huffed impatiently, until he laboriously pushed himself into a sitting position.

His head was still dizzy, and strange colors wandered in and out of being. Link knew something was wrong with him. He hoped it wasn't too bad.

_Here! _The fairy called, pulsing brightly over a fallen tree trunk some feet away._ My brother's trapped back here, please, help him!_

Link looked consideringly at the trunk, noting it's rotted surface. The fairy floated down by the ground, as close to where the tree had fallen as she could go and still fly. He thought she looked worried, but it was hard to tell when she was so small.

_Here. He was right here, before the tree fell. The Deku Tree's magic should have protected him, but it didn't, and we need to help him quickly!_

Link made a sound of agreement—his head hurt too much to nod—and carefully crouched beside the tree. After examining it carefully, he slowly eased his weight against it, wary of his head. He was lucky—the tree gave way reluctantly, and without too much energy. Leaves swished, and the trunk landed heavily with a deep _thud_.

_Tael? Tael? _The Fairy darted over the place the tree had been, before turning to him. _I can't find him!_ She said tearfully. _He isn't here!_

Link looked also, but his head was pounding again, and he wasn't sure he trusted his eyes. "Maybe he didn't get hit."

_No! I saw it land on him! He was right here! He looked so scared, and he could be—he could be- _

Link held a hand out to let the little fairy land. Squinting hard, he looked again at where the tree was, trying to put sluggish thoughts together.

"Maybe it only fell on part of him, and he found a way out when you were looking for help."

… _You think so?_ The fairy asked, sniffing. _He might've. He can be so annoying sometimes, maybe he went on without me just to give me a scare!_

"Maybe," said Link.

_Oooh, that rat!_ The fairy said, stomping a tiny foot. She wiped her face, and started flying again. _When I find him again, I'll give him a piece of my mind!_

"Can you help me find a way out of these Woods?" Link cut in, trying to focus on her.

_A way out? Why would you want to leave this place? These Woods are kind of nice, if you ask me._

"I need to get there," Link insisted. "My horse just got stolen, and I have to get out of here before I turn into a Stalfos."

The fairy grew suddenly silent, and seemed to be staring as though seeing him for the first time. Link stood as steadily as he could, hoping she saw his Kokiri green clothes, and wishing she didn't look so surprised, and so pitying. He'd been hurt worse than this—he just needed to find his horse.

After a few seconds, the fairy mumbled, _I don't know if we have enough time. It takes four days for people to turn into a Stalfos, and the forest's end is pretty far. No offense, but you're looking kind of puny, like you're about to pass out any second, now._

Link smiled faintly. "I probably am," he admittted. "But I have to go. I've got three days left, and I can't just give up. Epona and Navi need me."

_Navi's a fairy's name,_ the fairy pointed out, sounding surprised.

"I know. I used to be a Kokiri."

_You don't just 'stop being' a Kokiri,_ she retorted, eying him measuringly. _Either you're born it or you're not._

Link swayed, wishing he could just lie down and go to sleep. "Will you help me or not?"

After a long pause, the fairy finally sighed. _Fine. I'll help you. But you'd better not slack off when I'm working hard trying to get you out of here! I'm doing this as a favor, you know._

"I know, thanks," Link said, almost ready to cry with relief. "Thank you. A lot."

_I'm only doing it to find my brother,_ she grumbled. _Maybe we'll see him on the way._

"Yeah. Maybe," Link said agreeably.

_Then come on, already. There's no time to waste, so let's go._ The fairy darted past and behind him. Link momentarily forgot himself and tried to follow her with his gaze, and stars and bright colors exploded in his vision with a thunderous roar. His head pounded, and the world swayed, and he felt his knees and hands hit the ground with a dull, painful impact.

Finally the roaring sound left. A high-pitched ringing sound stayed, along with some of those strange bright colors. It almost looked as though he was somewhere else, like the woods were some gaudily displayed carrousel.

_Are you alright? You went really pale and just fell over, you look awful!_

"I'm—I'm okay," Link gasped.

The fairy's stopped hovering over him, landing angrily on a leaf beside him. _Don't scare me like that!_ She stomped, and the leaf swayed. Link looked away._ You selfish boy! Do you have any idea how much you just scared me?_

"I'm sorry," Link said, blinking hard. The colors still weren't fading. Some of them even moved in time with his head's pounding. "I'm sorry."

_Well, you should be. Now come on—and don't grab that, you moron, even your bony hands can handle those thorns! Okay, now follow me._

Link lumbered to his feet, trying not to fall over again. All he had to do was follow the moving light, and ignore the colorful hallucinations starting to take place. And while he was busy ignoring things, he had to keep himself from remembering just how hurt and exhausted he was.

He didn't have to ignore the possibility that he wouldn't make it. He was already sure of the answer.


End file.
